Effect of electrical stimulation, delayed chilling and post‐mortem aging on the quality of M. longissimus dorsi and M. biceps femoris of grass‐fed steers

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Roughage-based low-input beef production systems are gaining increasing interest owing to the perceived ecological advantages and potential health benefits associated with the favourable fatty acid composition of such beef. The low plane of nutrition may on the other hand yield less tender beef by affecting growth, carcass weight and fatness and therefore, indirectly, early post-mortem (p.m.) proteolytic enzyme activity and sarcomere shortening. This study aimed to examine delayed chilling and electrical stimulation as promising techniques to control early p.m. muscle metabolism in a way that improves the tenderness of beef from purely grass-fed steers in comparison with that from steers receiving a finishing diet with concentrates.

Vegetation-type effects on performance and meat quality of growing Engadine and Valaisian Black Nose sheep grazing alpine pastures

“…Apparently, meat tenderness was not very favourable in the present study, as the threshold of 40 N for tender meat described by Razminowicz et al (2008) was always exceeded. However, variations among studies in the absolute values of shear force are high.…”

“…Cooking losses were determined in 5 cm thick slices of the aged samples by weighing before and after 45 min of heating at 72 1C in sealed bags. After cooling to ambient temperature, in these samples maximum shear force was analysed in triplicate in cores of 1.27 cm diameter sheared perpendicular to the fibre direction with the Warner-Bratzler shear blade mounted on a texture analyser (Stable Micro Systems Ltd. TA-HD, Surrey, UK) as described by Razminowicz et al (2008). Table 2 Biomass (kg dry matter, as available on average), dry matter and nutrient contents (g/kg dry matter) of the sward on the experimental vegetation types in 2010 and 2011 (n¼ 24 per assessment year per vegetation type).…”

Beef quality in two autochthonous Valdostana breeds fattened in alpine transhumance: effect of lowland finishing and meat ageing

“…Indeed, Campo et al (2000) found texture effects only between 1, 3 and 7 days of ageing and not with prolonged ageing. Razminowicz et al (2008) registered a clear decline in shear force of the LT when increasing ageing time from 2 to 15 days, but no further decline with 29 days of ageing. The BF also did not attract higher tenderness scores when aged for longer than 21 days (Colle et al 2016).…”

Effect of Delayed Chilling Regimes on the Physicochemical Microbiological and Sensory Properties of Beef from N’dama Cattle

“…The meat was cut and weighed and samples for T0 were chilled immediately. Meat samples for T1-T5 were hung on retort stands prior to chilling after 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 hours delay and were chilled at 4 0 c for 24 hours and were removed one after the other for quality assessment (Razminowicz et al, 2008).…”

“…It is the method of keeping fresh meat cold enough in order to reduce most of the termophilic pathogenic micro-organisms before deborning the meat and it is appropriate in the production of wholesome fresh meat (Van Moeseke et al;2001, Savell et al, 2005. In most developing countries, fresh carcasses and meat are not usually chilled at abattoirs after slaughter, instead meat is displayed for several hours in the day by local butchers and exposed to environmental dirts which speed up microbial building on the meat and invoke its rapid deterioration (Singh and Sachan, 2010) Chilling of meat is usually at temperatures between 4-7 0 c for 24hours for muscle to undergo conversion to meat (Razminovicz et al;2008). Delayed chilling which is, holding meat carcasses at 15 0 c for 90 mins before normal chilling had been reported to have characteristic eff ects on meat quality (Bowater, 2001).…”